[Foxconn] said Monday it has added about 10,000 assembly-line workers per week in Zhengzhou, its major production facility for iPhones, since the last week of March.

"We have been very busy recently as we will start mass-producing the new iPhone soon," said a Zhengzhou-based executive who has direct knowledge of production plans.

If Apple sticks to its 2009 and 2011 pattern of keeping the same casing two years in a row and releasing an S-class update, then presumably it'll be an easier ramp up than last year where the manufacturing technology needed to produce the insanely redesigned iPhone 5 led to the usual transitional hiccups and supply constraints.

If that's the case, then software and services, namely iOS 7, and iCloud could be the major factors in determining the final release window for Apple next iPhone.

To date, every new iPhone has shipped with a new version of iOS, and the iPhone 4S shipped with iCloud. That coupling makes for greater product impact, but also greater dependency.

Hopefully, if hardware is ramping up, that's a sign everything else is also starting to line back up.

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Reader comments

Foxconn reportedly ramping up for iPhone 5S production

Well if rumors are true and it's aimed for a summer launch then this makes sense, don't want to start too early and have enough for when it launches, need to have all of those sell outs. I'm more interested to see IOS7

An August release would sit nice with me as i will be due an upgrade, But i am really hoping for a design refresh of the phone itself and if it is going to be a 5s then i cannot see that happening.
And because i already own the 5 i think i may have to just wait it out for the next proper refresh.
I will still have ios 7 to look forward to though.